Glitch on the ratings system

Today an unusual number of movies had a drop in its ratings. Movies with 7.1 dropped to 7.0, movies with 7.0 dropped to 6.9 and so on. And I mean a lot of movies, which obviously points to a glitch, while there were almost no movies with crescent ratings. I know because I have a list of almost 2000 movies and I am constantly observing its ratings movements. Please, take a look and try to fix it. Thanks and sorry for my english.

It is unusual when it is in the same day. The movies on my list rarely drop, and yesterday it happened with a lot of movies. Besides it is a list of classics, old movies, so they should have a more steady rating. For example. yesterday How to Marry a Millionaire, The Other, Hairspray and The Grifters had dropped from 7.0 to 6.9. FOUR movies, when my list normally stays for months without any movie drop to 6.9.

Many other movies must have fallen but I only keep track of the 7.0 movies because this is a criteria for my list. In the last month, at least 10 movies on this list have dropped to 6.9 and NO ONE has gone to 7.1. Obviously there is a problem.

Given that Birth has 20,598 votes, how many votes would need to be under 6 to change the average from (speculating here) 6.45 (which should round to 6.5) to something that rounds to 6.4? A single vote of 5 changes the average to 6.4499, which Google Sheets (correctly) rounds to 6.4.

I'll wait to create a sublist until you confirm this is the correct list.

I am getting the itch to update my mouseover data (for other reasons), but am holding off for this thread.

I have reported your observations (as well as the other observations mentioned in this thread) to the appropriate technical team who will take a look, as soon as I have further information I will share the updates with you here.

No. There is a pattern. The movies which were going up are still going up in a normal pace. The movies which were going down are now going down in a way faster pace than usual. If IMDb don't fix this soon, all the ratings system will be ruined.

Angelo is absolutely right. I check this website https://250.took.nl/ every single day, it shows how the Top250 changes on a daily basis. And in the last couple of days, I have noticed that instead of 10-15 daily changes, it shows now every day approx. 100-150 changes, which is abnormal. I also noticed, the there is a drop only for old movies.

The list is really long, but just to mention some classics for today (9th of August): Casablanca, Star Wars, City Lights, Alien, Apocalypse Now, Vertigo, Dr. Strangelove, etc. I mean, the chance, that the ratings for all these movies drop on the same day is just simply impossible.

So either there is a failure in the system or someone - or a group - has registered multiple accounts which tasks is to get rid of the old ones from the list. Would be a pity though, if that would be possible.

And in the last couple of days, I have noticed that instead of 10-15
daily changes, it shows now every day approx. 100-150 changes, which is
abnormal. I also noticed, the there is a drop only for old movies.

I noticed the same thing. Old titles that have (almost) always been in the Top 250 are now gone. Perhaps there's no foul play and everything is as it should be, but it is very strange indeed that in a few days all the following titles have been deleted from the Top 250.

Also The Exorcist, Beauty and the Beast, Donnie Darko, Dog Day Afternoon and others...

If this continues, i'm afraid in the next few days we 'll have to say goodbye to Gandhi, Groundhog Day (both huge drops in the last days), and then maybe Akira, Paris, Texas, Guardians of the Galaxy, Before Sunset, The Terminator...?? :(

Thanks, Péter. I think it is a failure because it is affecting all kinds of movies, with any kind of number of votes, not only the ones with 25000 votes or more. Since IMDb didn't solve the matter yet I think maybe should be a good idea if you create a new post specifically about the Top 250 issue. Maybe then they will be aware of how serious this problem is.

i've analyzed the movements in the top 250:-russian, turkish, and most of all indian and some japanese and old movies went up more than 20 places in 2 weeks (movies that usually dropped a lot of positions in the last months)-classics dropped more than 20 place while they usually kept the same spot for years.

I've seen that on the weekend (saturday and sunday) we have the same old chart: 10 changes only and the movies follows the "old" schemeFrom Monday to Friday in the last 2 weeks looks like a guy is pressing some buttons to make movies go up and down from the list and adjusting their overall vote, weighting manually the vote.It's a pity and i hope they will solve the issue soon.I hope this week they won't make a mess again, instead in a month we'll see a whole 250 list filled with unknown Indian movies, while the classics sit outside the chart.

200.took.nl is perfect for analyzing such strange changes in the rating system.

Let's see what they will do... and if they want to give us some answers....

Hi, as you could see, the problem isn't affecting only the Top 250, but the whole site. Thousands of movies had suffered a suddenly and abrupt drop on its ratings. It looks like it has stopped now, but the ratings were not restored to the way they were a week ago. I hope they can fix this.

Been reading all this and it seems to me that a lot of those titles that we loved and rated as the absolute highest number we could give it was a little higher than our older and wiser self is willing to bear. I like others may be downgrading our ratings. I like many individuals that are becoming senior citizens are looking at the limitations that filmmakers of the 30's 40's 50's and 60's in tech available for scene creation. CGI has gotten so good that The Wizard of Oz can't hold a candle to Avatar. A new generation is rating the classics lower and I find myself looking at the Wizard and saying to myself that it is not a movie that rates an 8. Don't get me wrong, I love the Wizard, but it isn't an 8 to me anymore. I had an old account that I can no longer access where I had rated it a 9. I would not rate it today more than a 7. I may not be the only person thinking this same way.

I wonder if "regular IMDb voters" (and I assume they aren't referring to fiber diets) has some impact. I don't see a definition of it and assume it's for a reason, but I'd bet depending on how that is defined impacts. I wonder at what point people fall from being regular and newer users become regular.I hope that imdb has some good statisticians and ORAs that work on this.

Ed as a fellow senior (although I'm less senior) I have to disagree. Some movies (and shows) are classics regardless of technology. Technology is certainly a facet, but do you rate movies solely on technology? When I rate a movie I certainly look at tech, but also consider the acting, story, does it make me want to watch it again, something I would want to share, and several other angles I can't express.I'd bet that I probably rate things more highly than you in general.
Maybe it's because I'm not in the biz as you, so my standards are
different.Without looking I'm sure Oz has a 10 from me without looking, and I can't image lowering it. Off the top of my head another title would be Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Animated nothing like what can be done today (like the Monsters movies), but to me it's simply a great story.But I have to agree that I do change ratings on titles, but I tend to do so about equally up and down but it's not for what I think are considered "classics" or ground-breakers. Just some thoughts from a bum.

I do wonder if some older pictures (that were extremely popular or acclaimed in their time) are marked mediocre simply for not being adequately politically correct or something such. To me, politics is like an infection of which the arts-and-sciences world just cannot be rid, likewise the identity politics facet of politics regularly invades other aspects of politics. However, I don't want to conflate political consciousness with simply the inability to identify with protagonists in one particular story or another, so I'm just not sure how various audiences may necessarily view things.

I love old movies and have been wondering what will happen when Millennials discover TCM! I foresee the day where owning their DVDs/streams will be as illegal as raw milk in Milwaukee and they will come, guns drawn, to your house, search your files, leave the child p--n intact and delete Casablanca and Citizen (Kandy) Cane and cuff you and haul you right then and there, in front of your crying kids.

I love the classics too, but this is not the point. There is no one doing this "downgrading" manually. It is a glitch or an adjustment on the system. I think it is a glitch because it only affected the movies which were on a falling tendency on the ratings. If it was an adjustment it would affect the movies with crescent ratings too, I think.

For me, if I had read this page before finding the "Wizard of Oz" obsessed fan, I'd have said it's normal that a movie goes from 7.0 to 6.9. It is not a huge drop in the ratings, (definitely not like going from 8 to say a 5) but I reckon those of you who watch this closely know better than I do. ﻿

Somebody is clearly pushing some buttons to make movies go up and down.Like I said, the weekend was ok with no huge movements and then.......it's now monday morning in the USA and we can see AGAIN some huge movements in the list.

At 9pm CET we had 10 movements in the top 250 (maximum +2 or -2 places)At 10.30pm CET we have now 150 movements in the top 250 (maximum +5 places from russian, indian movies AGAIN).

this site is becoming useless. you know any other place with a clear rating system? is there a site where we can have some fun like we had on IMDB til a month ago ?

There needs to be an overhaul of the 250 Concept1. IMDb International Top 250. To qualify, the titles must have been available in multiple languages. Russian, English, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, & Chinese. (or an agreement of minimum languages) To qualify the titles must be available in the first 3 languages (See agreement mentioned) and at least 2 of the last three. (No Bootleg translations) The country of origin language shall count that are not part of the top 6 languages, but still must be translated into the top 3 languages to be considered.2. IMDb European Top 2503. IMDb Middle Eastern Top 2504. IMDb Former Soviet Bloc Top 2505. IMDb North American Top 2506. IMDb Central and South American Top 250 (Can include Spain and Portugal if it makes sense)

Yes, and today two more movies from my list of classics have turn from 7.0 to 6.9: Barabbas and Harper. When the things were normal this was very rare. It usually occured with no more than 5 movies a year. And no answers from IMDb staff yet.

If IMDb has been purging long inactive accounts. The ones that are as old as the database then those votes would disappear. IMDb will probably not admit to it. It is the only logical explanation for these major shifts. Many of those old account I suspect may have a large percentage of the "Top 1000" voters. That would make the voting shift even more as their votes heavily influence the weighted average formula.

@bderoes thanks for the list, it shows really well that something is not right. It is strange to see, that the rating of these movies dropped besides having the same number of votes. Yeah, I believed for a minute the previous explanation stating that inactive accounts have been deleted, which btw would make sense, but than the number of votes should have dropped as well, so obviously there must be a glitch.

The following formula is used to calculate
the Top Rated 250 titles. This formula provides a true 'Bayesian
estimate', which takes into account the number of votes each title has
received, minimum votes required to be on the list, and the mean vote
for all titles:

weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C

Where:

R = average for the movie (mean) = (rating)

v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)

m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top Rated list (currently 25,000)

C = the mean vote across the whole report

Please be aware that the Top Rated Movies
Chart only includes theatrical features: shorts, TV movies, miniseries
and documentaries are not included in the Top Rated Movies Chart. The
Top Rated TV Shows Chart includes TV Series, but not TV episodes or
Movies.

One or two missing votes from a Top 1000 voter would have a large effect on the ratings. Some of the older titles (Classics) were undoubtedly propped up by these voters. So major ratings changes without much vote shift is normal if you lose a few Top 1000 voters. Also to consider is this. A lot has been said about titles from India invading the top 250. The voting patterns of the people of India are not very desirable when you are looking for an honest vote. They have pride in their country and vote accordingly and unusually higher numerically ratings wise. IMDb has admitted in many posts that it constantly tweaks the weighted average formula. It may be evenly applied. A one size formula fits all. If they apply an algorithm that suppresses overly high 10 votes, which is what the Indian titles are in abundance of, all other titles would automatically be effected immediately. We have no idea how the implementation of these tweaks happen either. To try and not have major shifts an implementation plan may phase it in over a specific time frame. Again we are not privy to any of this, nor will any answer be forthcoming. You thought about it for a minute. I have been pondering this for more than 5 days. Now while a ticket may have been filed, and as I stated an answer may never come because the ratings system is a secret. To answer your concerns would reveal too much of what IMDb has been trying to keep secret about that formula. My theory walks like a duck. It quacks like a duck! You can ignore it if you like, but wherever possible, I try to subscribe to Occam's Theory when extrapolating a plausible explanation in cause and effect. Effect being the change, and the cause =? My theory makes more sense according to Occam's. IE: No Glitch.ThanksEd:):)

Actually I was never a fan of the idea that "India invades the Top250".Bollywood creates more movies than Hollywood, still, only like 15-20 of them are present in the Top250. Also, I have seen many terribly rated Indian movies as well, which kinda proves my point.

And for the record, movies like Dangal, Taare Zameen Par, 3 Iditos, Lagaan, Khuda Kay Liye, Swades, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Black, My Name is Khan, Kahaani, Talaash are pure classics as well and they should definitely be listed among the greatests of all time.

On the other hand, as Indians are presumably overrating their moves, we can pretend, that people from other countries sharing this opinion tend to downrating them...which makes the whole thing equal anyway.

It cannot be equal. Misconception. India has a population of 1.33 Billion (BILLION)The combined English speaking population is barely over 500 million or roughly 27-28% of India's. A little tipsy in India's favor. Told you I thought this through thoroughly before replying.

So you mean, that only English speaking countries watch US movies or what?

Also, only approx. 500 million Indians have Internet access as of today. And how many of them do you think watch movies regularly? Maybe 150 million. And how many of them rate these movies on iMDB? Who knows. But in a few seconds, that number dropped a lot.

Exactly! That's why I think is more a commercial move from IMDB to gain some visibility in India. But since there is an Indian top 250, I don't understand why IMDB have to flood another chart with all these movies..

The problem is that we can only speculate. Of course, IMDb can't say too much about this, but I feel they should be able to tell us if they significantly tweaked something in the last two weeks or not.

First, this thread shows "in progress" and Michelle said above that it's been directed to. Unfortunately that was right before the weekend so then two days passed without action, but hopefully it means that maybe something will be spoken soon.

There are so many good points. If imdb made a change and would just say they made a change (vs we make changes) or say there are external forces at work that they are working on. That would make such a difference. (see para 1 on when that might happen).

But a list that's top 250 "worldwide" is going to have titles from multiple countries and genres. If not now, it's destined to at some time.

And lastly, pretty much everything I've read assumes that Indians are voting high for reasons other than they really like certain movies. I've read where it's cultural pride, but if that were the case I'd expect far more movies to have shifted because that would mean every movie would be rated highly and there's been a change of I believe 15 titles and that would assume a country of 1.3B have only voted high on 15 movies.

Lastly again, a quick search shows that about 500M Indians have internet capable cell phones. So the person that had it down to 150M is shooting too low since imdb is mobile. Who knows, maybe imdb just did a big ad buy in India and lots of mobile users signed up. That too could have caused such an impact and imdb will likely never say anything. I know amazon owns imdb, but certain types of significant actions have to be disclosed (by law) in SEC filings but they will follow in the quarterly and sometimes annual filing. Any true impactful action, which trying to cater more to a country with 1.3B people like India, would require disclosure unless someone likes prison.

Actually, of course it can: those are passionate (millions of) fans and, thereby, a force to be reckoned with. Now that I see you mention this, I remember it being a topic of contention back at the IMDb forums, when this phenomenon seemed to have started, I'd say some 10 years ago is when I first saw it mentioned. People were saying that Indians should have their own website and/or not mix English-language film on IMDb with Indian movies. When it affects Hollywood, we have a problem. Hollywood movies are internationally seen. Bollywood? Not so much. They cannot compare and ought not be put in the same batch. They do not mix.

1) It's not only old classic movies that had their ratings drop . There are some newer movies as well.

2) We can't leave Indian movies (not India) out of this, simply because they are a major part of this situation! In the last 2 weeks, some movies had (sudden, unexpexted and unexplained) position drops and dropped out the Top 250 list. Wouldn't be normal if they were replaced by other movies from all over the world that previously were ranked just below them? Instead, 10 out of 11 of these new entries were Indian movies! Only Indian movies. In a period of only 2 weeks and with huge rises in the list.Don't you find this strange/odd/curious/abnormal?

3) Indians are not overrating their films NOW. This was happening always. Most of these movies have more than 50 000 votes, some more than 100 000. It's the IMDB policy towards these votes that has changed. Either IMDB doesn't think most of these votes are "overrating" anymore, or decided to give the "regular voter" status to more Indian members.

The two things are linked ... if they changes the rating system some movies get benefit other get damaged.. got example.. why jeanne d'arc gets his votes improved while its arithmetichal vote gets low? Why with a 7.7 arithmetical has a 8.1 weighted? Why that while all the classics have ratings going down? It really looks like a manually maneuver !!!

You are trying to make sense out of a mathematical equation that you do not have the formula to extrapolate an answer. It now has a 7.8 and an 8.2. Their Arithmetic terminology has really never been defined. If you look at these numbers below the 7.8 Arithmetic is obviously a formulatic equation. Not actual math.So.....41,307
IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 8.2 / 10
is below these 3 numbers and is correct.And please don't point out that the numbers don't add up. IMDb throws a monkey-wrench into anyone being able to figure out their formula by conveniently leaving out the split between US and NON US voters that prefer not to identify their sex. That's 15,000 unidentified and/or categorized votes.

Ok..BUT ......even if you don't have their formula, you can easily calculate the weight. Every time a movie rating goes from 8.2 to 8.1 or vice versa you can easily found the WEIGHT. ex: 8,2= weight*arithemthical mean.So everytime a movie outmatch the one you know the weight, you can found its weight as well..and so on.Last year with this method, i've found the weight of almost every movie in the list, exploiting the small movements. It's not THE perfect formula, because you have to do some brief adjustments but it worked very well.

Now every thing changed, for the worse, the weights are gone and change every 2 hours.

This is today top movements in the top 250. Same non English movies go up .. and old movies go down.
Same story for each day in August.. what a pity.. I think I won't visit that site anymore..or at least not many time like I did in the past. Same will do other users I think. How can IMDB change the system to have less visitors? Are they crazy ?

This article has probably been discussed, but it seemed on point. A quote from it is "... IMDb planned to customize more features for Indian audiences,
and reach out to stakeholders in the Indian film-industry about the
company's premium product, IMDbPro."

The article is from 12/2018, so one would think about time that they started doing something. If a goal was to expand into India and put imdbpro there, then it would make sense that they would want Indian films in the top 250.

They finally pushed the button at 10 pm CET. I HAVE seen that in 15 October 2013 til 15 January 2014 a lot of movies like 3 idiots gained like 100 places. I think they are doing the same changing the system to change the whole chart. When I say they push a button is real. I mean they decide which movie deserve to go up or down. There are some common points. Us movies, super heroes movies, the major part of old movies go down. Non English movies, the lion king go up. Now the list of USA movies is under 150 (-10 in 2 weeks) .. let's see if they stop pulling out movies random.

Marco, this is what i replied to a previous message of yours, 2 days ago:

"Also The Exorcist, Beauty and the Beast, Donnie Darko, Dog Day Afternoon and others...

If this continues, i'm afraid in the next few days we 'll have to say goodbye to Gandhi, Groundhog Day (both huge drops in the last days), and then maybe Akira, Paris, Texas, Guardians of the Galaxy, Before Sunset, The Terminator...?? :("

Unfortunately, today that indeed happened...And the favouritism of Indian movies continues as well.